Shine: The Knowing Ones (14 page)

He
had changed; his visage warrior-like, fearless. If these two fought, one of them might die. And it wouldn’t be Trin.

Ryan glanced to the shifting skies, then back to Trin. The rain had finally caught his attention, but it was the look in Trin’s eyes that had him thinking twice; utter calm, no fear. Not a single trace of it. Trin’s rage manifested in the most intimidating way—silent, pure, unadulterated confidence. He would end this—just waiting for Ryan to say when.

Ryan glanced to the sky, then at Trin, and backed down.

Rain poured. Sam tightened her grip on Erika’s hand and made a beeline for Trin’s truck. Ryan had taken off in the opposite direction.

Trin stood unmoving as the rain drenched him from head to toe, his now soaking shirt clinging to his majestic form. How was he going to explain
this?

The girls waited for him in his truck. He could feel Sam’s frantic questions searing into him from across the parking lot. She knew he had caused the storm. He felt it the moment it registered. He
turned, making his way toward his truck. It was going to be a long night.

Sam and Trin walked Erika into the dorm building. On the way over, Sam had been with her in the back of the truck, trying to convince her she wasn’t safe.

“He’s using steroids, Erika. Do you know how dangerous that is, for you and him?”

Erika remained quiet, pain and humiliation flaring in her aura. Sam made eye contact with Trin through the rearview mirror. Erika wasn’t the only one not talking. Trin had asked Erika if she was all right once he made it to his truck, but went mute after receiving her answer—too busy thinking of ways to get out of explaining the magic water works outside the library.

He hadn’t said a word. She would deal with him later.

“How long have you two been together?” Sam asked.

“Eight months,” Erika said, hugging herself. She trembled, but not from the cold.

Sam leaned forward. “Trin, do you have a blanket or something?”

“I should have a sweatshirt back there.”

Sam surveyed the backseat finding a black and red Ute hoodie on the floor. Erika began to object, not wanting to impose.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Warm up, you’re soaked.”

Sam handed the hoodie to Erika, focusing on Trin in the rearview mirror. His eyes remained on the road.

Erika wrapped her arms around her newly warmed body in Trin’s sweatshirt and glanced down. “Thanks, Trin.”

“Of course,” he said. His light eyes flashed in her direction through the mirror. “You’ve gotta get away from him, Erika. He’s really messed up.”

She squirmed in her seat looking at the floor. “He wasn’t always like this,” she said. “He changed over the summer. He suddenly got really mean and impatient. Little things began to bother him.”

Trin looked up. “About the same time he got all cut, right?”

Erika glanced out the window through streaks of rain. “Look, I know it’s bad,” she said. “He got all stressed at the beginning of the summer.
He kept saying he had to turn it up a notch to keep his competitive edge. I didn’t know at first what was going on.” She looked up again with the same desperate expression. “When I finally figured it out he was already a different person and every time I try to tell him how dangerous it is he just freaks out on me,” she said, tears streaming down her face.

“He’s always on edge. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells all the time.”

Sam put an arm around Erika as she and Trin exchanged glances in the mirror.

“You can’t live like that, Erika” Sam said. “He needs help, and so do you. It’s not going to get better. It’s going to get worse.”

Trin pulled the truck into student housing, found an empty stall and parked. Evening settled over the campus as the sun dissolved into a pin point of light and vanished. Turning the ignition off, Trin wrapped an arm around the passenger seat, looking over his shoulder at Erika.

“We understand the pressure that comes with competing,” he said. “Being an athlete at this level can be brutal. We all feel it. But there are healthy ways and destructive ways of staying on top of your game. Ryan’s a good player. I know who he is. There’s no reason for him to do what he’s doing. But he’s gotta figure that out, and you can’t go down with him,” he said. “Ryan is dangerous. He nearly hit you today.”

Erika looked to the floor, helpless.

“You know,” Trin said, “society has a pretty skewed perception of women. It’s kind of one of my hot buttons. Your hanging on comes from a good place, but it’s not helping him. It is only destroying you. Some relationships are toxic from the start and they don’t ever improve.”

Erika stared at the floor, consumed by indecision. A fleeting moment of glimmering light filled Trin’s eyes. Sam suppressed a gasp as the mysterious white aura reappeared around him, gleaming in a full body halo, this time minus the fury.

The energy extended out from Trin, enshrouding Erika, spilling all around her, filling her soul until it shone in her eyes, merging with her injured energy, and for a fleeting moment, replacing it. “
You do have a choice,”
he said.

Trin maintained the exchange for a moment longer and released her. Erika sat stunned, unsure of what had just taken place.

Her face fell to her hands and she began to cry. “Thank you,” she whispered.

CHAPTER TWENTY

T
rin and Sam made sure Erika’s roommates were home before leaving, knowing there was a good chance she would get right on the phone to Ryan if she were left alone.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Sam said.

“Okay.” Erika glanced at Trin. “Thanks again,” she said, an element of wonder in her eyes.

“Anytime,” he said.

Erika lowered her head and closed the door. Trin stood, staring. “She’s still stuck,” he sighed. “He’s addicted to the juice and she’s addicted to him.” He ran his fingers through his wet hair and exhaled.

Heated energy stabbed at him from two feet away. He glanced up, catching Sam from the corner of his eye staring with unapologetic expectancy.

With a muted Russian curse—he lifted his vibrant eyes to hers, having no idea what to say.

Sam glanced down the hall toward her dorm. “Come in for a while.”

“I’m soaked.”

“Me too.”

They stared at each other, a battle of will raging. With a defiant glance at the wall, Trin surrendered, following Sam down the hall. She unlocked the door and went in. Trin entered behind her and closed the door as she flipped the light on—the room quiet and empty.

He glanced around. “Where’s Anna?”

“She’s with Vig. He’s playing tonight.”

Trin nodded.

“They were actually hoping we’d meet up with them,” Sam added. She set her bag on the table and turned to face him.

Silence.

“What’s going on, Trin?” she asked.

He glanced down, jaw tight.

She moved closer. “You gotta give me
something,”

Nothing. Thick, dark lashes blocked the obstinacy in his eyes.

“No?” she asked. “Okay. Your aura turned
white
when you saw Ryan. You were
angry
and it turned
white
. That’s the second time I’ve seen it and I’ve
never
seen that before.”

His light eyes flashed past her to the wall—stubborn, silent.

“You then
transferred
some of that same energy to Erika.”

“Anybody can share energy. People do it all the time.”

“Not consciously.”
Sam maintained a hardened, defiant gaze.

Trin threw it right back.

She moved toward him, desperate.
“You caused that rainstorm,”
she said. Your energy was everywhere. I can see everything you do, Trin. You say your abilities are just like mine, but they’re not. I have no idea what you’re doing most of the time, but I can see it. You
know
I can see it and you don’t hide it from me. You just keep working which makes me think that on some level you want me to know, almost like you
wished
I knew.”

She lifted a hand. “I know you can explain everything that’s happening to me. My whole body feels it every time you’re around, even when you’re not. My life has turned upside down and I am convinced you know why.”

She grabbed his hands. “Why won’t you tell me—“

“I am trying to protect you, Sam.”

Trin’s eyes flashed with ferocity—a strict command to let the subject drop.

Eyes to the floor her lips parted in a gasp. It was true, the nightmares, visions, the disembodied voices.
He did know
. All this time he had. It was real. It all meant something and he knew what it was.

She lifted her gaze. “Protect me from
what
, Trin?”

Trin took her shoulders in his strong hands. “I do know what’s going on,” he said. “You’re not hallucinating and you’re not crazy. But I can’t tell you yet. Please,” he said, “just give me a little more time to find the best way to keep you safe.”

Sam pulled away, eyes wide with shock. He pulled her back. “Sam, please...”

“Safe from
what,
Trin?” she said, breaking loose. “I want to know, especially if it involves my safety.”

“That’s
why
I can’t tell you yet.” Trin took her by the shoulders again, muscled arms flexing as he forced her closer to him.

“You do deserve to know, you absolutely do. But it goes a lot deeper than you can possibly imagine. I know you don’t understand it, but
I do
and I need you to trust me. It isn’t safe, and I have to keep you safe.
It is my job!”

A spiral of panic wound its way down Sam’s spine, taking her words, leaving her speechless.

“I’ve been protecting you from the night we met,” Trin said. “It’s what I do. Look at me, Sam,” he ordered, his gaze inches from hers. “You know me.”

Sam stared back, unraveling under his gaze while fear and frustration tore her in every direction.

“You know me.”
Pulling her closer, his powerful grip tightened. “Your gifts are no random party trick.” A fleeting shock of white blue lit his irises. His hand left her shoulder and drifted downward. Lacing fingers with Sam he pushed his palm against hers. A charge of energy pulsed through her and an image appeared in her mind—a bird’s eye view of a crowded Eastern European city, thousands of people making their way through the streets, experiencing their lives, going about their day.

The crowd didn’t appear to Sam as people normally did. No visible energy; no auras, just people, thousands of human spirits, unreadable beneath the cover of flesh.

As if a switch had been flipped, energy erupted around each one; exposing each distinct aura, indicating their own place on the path of life. Some faint, some explosive, some radiant, some hazy. Deep in thought, consumed by work, grieving over lost loved ones, rejoicing in success and love. Humanities’ energetic components actively vibrated within the fabric of human consciousness, the way she was used to seeing it.

She closed in on a troubled man, despondent, lost. Another man next to him offered counsel and support, his aura healthy and vibrant, appearing as the others. In a flash it blinked out as another aura ruptured from beneath it—beautiful shimmering blue light cascading over him, extending to the troubled man, swallowing him up in healing light.

A woman five feet away erupted in the same blinding blue light. Ten feet from her another, across the crowded street, another and another down the block. So many revealing at once Sam couldn’t keep track. The vision zoomed out. Brilliant sky-blue auras everywhere, just like Trin’s minus the gold.

The vision shifted. Sam stood alone in blinding white light, golden aura solid around her, unyielding depth in her eyes. They gleamed, pushing, prodding—
remember...
r
emember.

Trin appeared behind her like thunder, a presence she could not comprehend, indescribably humbling. Moving to her side, he took her hand. On contact his golden blue aura spilled into her, gleaming in a halo around her body, generating power Sam could never hope to sustain. A foreign word flashed through her mind. ВЄДУНИ. She fell forward into Trin.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

S
am leaned in shock against his solid chest, his heart racing beneath her. He held her close as truth resonated through her. She didn’t know what she had just seen, but she knew it was bigger than she was—much bigger. She trembled, unsure if she even wanted to know anymore—the enormity of it. What must the opposite side of it be? Sinister jade eyes hovered in her memory. She pulled Trin closer—refusing to believe the monster was more powerful than he was.

She slowly lifted her head from his chest, wanting answers, not wanting answers, and wanting relief from the terror that gripped her. She reached down, taking his right wrist. Exquisite gold links slipped against his skin as she turned his masculine hand, taking the thin plate of gold in her fingers, exposing the underside. The foreign word to the left of the stone held her captive. She looked up. “It’s not just you...”

Trin shook his head.

“There are so many.”

“An entire race,” he said.